


Who Will Leave Flowers When I'm Gone?

by DannyAnne



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, and at each other, only a little though, they're really just staring sadly at flowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 21:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11836959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DannyAnne/pseuds/DannyAnne
Summary: Simon had learned a lot of things about Hotel Dumort since he Turned.But he hadn’t learned about the flowers.





	Who Will Leave Flowers When I'm Gone?

Simon had learned a lot of things about Hotel Dumort since he Turned. He’d learned the way the hallways twisted and turned but always, in the end, connected back to each other. He’d learned which steps creaked and which ones were silent to anyone that wasn’t a vampire. He’d learned which rooms were empty during the day and full during the night. He’d learned who had trouble sleeping and who seemed to do nothing but sleep.

But he hadn’t learned about the flowers.

He knew about them. Of course he knew about them. They stood out. While most of the time the hotel itself felt archaic, filled with scattered bits of the past, some stolen, some personal, the flowers were so incredibly…mundane. Simon couldn’t help but spend long days when he couldn’t sleep settling into the couch and staring at the vase of flowers that sat on the coffee table.

The hotel always stayed the same. Curtains never shifted, walls were never re-painted. Simon felt like he was stepping into a bubble of frozen time whenever he passed through the front door.

But the flowers changed. One day the vase would be full of a bundle of lavender, another day two sunflowers crowded it. Foxglove, larkspur, lilac. Some of them Simon had to spend a few minutes looking up on his phone. Even then, some of them were absolutely impossible to identify.

Simon’s favorite was the daffodil.

Singular, because when the daffodil appeared it was only a solitary flower leaning carelessly against the lip of the vase. The first time Simon saw it, he wanted nothing more than to touch the petals. Was it possible for a flower to look so lonely? But the single bloom had looked so fragile. Untouchable. It felt still like the hotel.

So Simon let it be.

**xxx**

Simon had been at the hotel for a year when a day came that the vase was empty.

He’d been making his way back to his room, hoodie pulled tight around himself from the autumn cold that he pretended he could still feel. He’d glanced at the vase as he always did and stopped when he saw it standing empty.

Curious, he redirected his steps and peeked into the vase, wondering if today’s flower had been so small that it had slipped out of sight. But there was nothing. Not even water. Simon had tentatively poked at the vase, nudging it an inch out of place. He frowned. And then went to his room.

The next day, a rather elaborate bouquet of tulips filled the vase. Simon’s chest felt at ease again.

Nobody in the hotel talked about the flowers so Simon figured it was off limits. Sometimes, he caught a few of the clan members taking second glances at the vase. They always looked a little sad. In those moments Simon would pause to stare at the flowers, wondering what they could possibly see besides a bunch of pretty petals and leaves.

**xxx**

Simon was coming close to two years at the hotel when the silence was broken.

The air outside was starting to smell like dead leaves. Simon had pulled a thick blanket from his room and huddled on the couch for his flower vigil. Tonight, the daffodil was back.

Raphael sat beside him.

Simon stayed quiet, only acknowledging the other’s presence with a few quick sideways glances. It was how he usually acknowledged Raphael when he entered a room and he wasn’t about to change habits now.

“They’re for us,” Raphael said.

Simon, despite his instincts, turned his head and met Raphael’s eyes. He couldn’t tell if Raphael had been looking at him the entire time or if they had simultaneously decided that hidden glances were too much of an effort.

He looked back at the daffodil.

“There’s no graves for people to leave flowers at,” Raphael continued. “Usually, there’s nobody to leave flowers anyway. So we leave them for ourselves.”

Simon felt his chest grow heavy.

This is what Raphael did. He lived his undead life at the hotel running the clan, looking stoic and keeping quiet. If Simon wanted to know something about life as a vampire (or anything for that matter), he had to be the first one to speak or Raphael would never give him anything.

And then, sometimes, with seemingly no provocation, Raphael talked about things too big for a single person to hold. Things like wearing golden crosses despite the scars they gave you. Things like how it felt to miss the sunrise. Things like loyalty and family and a homesickness that never went away.

For a long time, Simon had hated these moments. He’d hated the way Raphael’s voice went quiet instead of low. He’d hated the way his shoulders dropped and his fingers twitched. He’d hated the steady look he fixed Simon with. Most of all, he’d hated the way every word wrapped around his long stopped heart and squeezed.

Now, two years deep in this new life, Simon loved these moments. They washed his skin with a chill. They made him feel a little closer to living.

“Who brings the daffodils?” Simon asked even though he knew.

Raphael sank further into the couch. “I like the color.”

“It’s not very you.”

Something like a laugh slipped past Raphael’s lips. This, too, Simon had learned to love.

“Where do you even get flowers?” Simon asked.

“Being able to portal to any climate you want has its perks.”

Simon didn’t point out that you needed a warlock to make a portal. He got the message.

“I’ve always liked gardenias,” Simon said.

Raphael had turned his head so that he could look at Simon without much effort at all. Simon looked back at him. “They suit you,” Raphael said.

Simon thought about the flowers a lot after that. He tried to guess which flowers belonged to who. Lily, he decided, left the bunches of colorful hollyhock with green leaves squeezing between their petals. He’d been proven right when he saw her glance wistfully at the full vase, eyes a little sad but also full of love. Simon had touched his hand to hers, just briefly, when he passed by. She’d spent the night in his room telling him about her last sunset.

Simon thought Elliot had left the cliché dozen roses, deep red and pristine. But he’d left his room in the middle of the day to grab a drink of blood and paused to watch Elliot arrange a few branches speckled with pale pink cherry blossoms. He said a quiet prayer to himself and smiled kindly at Simon when he noticed him. Simon smiled back.

Simon didn’t know where to get flowers. Magnus, he knew, could do it just as Raphael had suggested. But, if Simon was being honest with himself, he felt a little bit like it wasn’t his place to ask.

“Can I have some flowers for my own nonexistent grave?” he muttered mockingly into his mirror. “Just a few will do it. Don’t want to seem too vain!”

He groaned, fell into his bed and went to sleep. The next night, it seemed that finding flowers didn’t matter. There was an elegant bouquet of gardenias in the vase. He never stopped looking at them.

**xxx**

Closer to three years dead, Simon went to Magnus and called in a favor.

“You don’t have any favors to call in,” Magnus said fondly.

They didn’t even need a portal. Magnus simply disappeared into his room and a moment later emerged with a disgruntled Alec and a handful of flowers.

Simon took them gratefully and quickly returned to the hotel where a single daffodil sat waiting on the coffee table.

He placed his daffodils in the vase, arranging them so that they didn’t press against each other too much.

He didn’t expect Raphael to show up, but he also wasn’t too surprised when he stepped back from his work and bumped shoulders with him.

Raphael grabbed his hand and held it.

Normally, Simon might have felt panicked. But he figured only one of them was allowed to feel flustered at a time. He touched his forehead to Raphael’s shoulder, reveling in the feeling of the smooth fabric of his jacket.

Raphael pressed a kiss into his hair and then to his cheek and then to his lips.

Simon reveled in that feeling too.

**Author's Note:**

> Daffodils often symbolize rebirth and eternal life. It's also said that a single daffodil shows misfortune while multiple daffodils show happiness.
> 
> Gardenias symbolize purity, innocence and modestly. In more specific flower language, they're a way of saying "you're lovely" and could also be associated with secret love.
> 
> I'm on tumblr as BoldBones.


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